


Disarmed

by SlimReaper



Series: Say Yes [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Smut, Grumpy Medic, Healthy Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, It's not that bad I swear, M/M, Medical Procedures, My God this is already sounding really dark, New Relationship, Other, Past Abuse, Past Drug Use, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-The Transformers: Drift - Empire of Stone, Robot Feels, Robot Sex, Schmoop, Self Confidence Issues, The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye (IDW), This is way too many damn tags, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, True Love, dratchet - Freeform, iopele
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 19:31:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3948919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlimReaper/pseuds/SlimReaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Direct sequel to Breaking the Silence so go read that first.) After the events of Drift: Empire of Stone, Ratchet and Drift decide to take the scenic route back to the Lost Light. Drift tries to figure out how to embrace his really-really-good present without thinking about his really-really-bad past. Ratchet tries to figure out how to tell Drift just who is currently occupying the captain's chair back on the ship. Wing's Great Sword has an Opinion. Patience gets tested. The berth gets a workout.</p><p>Relationships are hard, especially when they matter this much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Right Destination, Wrong Attitude

**Author's Note:**

> The fluff is therapeutic right now. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it, dammit. Besides, lots of you lovely people asked for more, and how could I disappoint you?
> 
> I hope like hell that this is not going to turn into another monster fic, but as I've previously said, I don't know how to write short things. So how long will this one be? Primus only knows. Let's find out together.

They'd only gotten a little way down the corridor before Drift had spun and pinned Ratchet to the bulkhead again. Ratchet couldn't complain–first, because his mouth was occupied with one of the most glorious kisses of his entire life, and then because he was too busy venting hot and moaning curses as Drift nipped and mouthed at his throat. The medic had never thought he'd get off on being held down and bitten, but something about feeling Drift's denta working him over while he was helpless to escape was darkly exciting. His fingers flexed and he couldn't help but wonder what that mouth would feel like elsewhere… just the thought made his spike throb and his valve clench, aching for attention.

But that didn't mean that Ratchet would  _ever_  ask for that. Drift's feelings about that particular activity were crystal clear and he certainly had enough reasons to hate doing it. However amazing it would undoubtedly feel to have Drift's mouth on his array, no amount of pleasure could ever be worth making Drift suffer through such awful memories. No, Ratchet would far rather live the rest of his functioning without ever receiving that again than put his lover through that.

Besides, if last night was any indication, Ratchet didn't think he'd even miss it. Damn, but Drift was hotter than any mech had a right to be. Ratchet was almost embarrassed at how fast he'd overloaded once he'd spiked him, but he hadn't been able to help it. Drift's valve felt fragging  _amazing_  and Ratchet had a suspicion that the swordsmech would be just as incredible with his spike. It was a theory he couldn't wait to test.

But Drift seemed to be in no hurry to move back to the berthroom, and he had Ratchet's hands locked to the wall beside his hips so the medic could do little to hurry him along. "Berth," he demanded, or at least he tried to demand. It really came out as more of a whimper, but at least he could pretend that he sounded commanding and not like he was having trouble remembering how his knees worked.

Drift nuzzled his cheek and then pulled back to smile at him, and that smile of his was the final blow. "Drift,  _berth_ ," Ratchet repeated, not even trying to pretend he wasn't begging now.

The swordsmech chuckled and kissed him far too briefly. "So impatient," he murmured against Ratchet's lips when he growled with frustration at the too-short kiss. Then Drift pulled back and winked at him. "Let me check the autopilot first. I'm not ready to get to the  _Lost Light_  just yet, unless you're feeling eager."

Ratchet used one of Drift's own moves and snaked a leg around the speedster's waist, pulling him in so he could press their panels together. "I'm feeling  _very_  eager," he growled as he rocked his hips against his lover's. "But not to get to the ship."

Drift laughed again and his EM field surged with happiness and desire. "Hold that thought. Only take me a minute to reprogram our course," he promised, finally releasing Ratchet and turning toward the low entrance to the cockpit. Ratchet followed, thoroughly taking advantage of this opportunity to admire Drift's exquisite frame from behind. It was indeed a lovely view and his engine revved appreciatively.

Drift grinned back at him and then had to bend to duck through the doorway and twist to the side to keep from catching any of his swords against the frame. The movement caused the armor plates on the swordsmech’s back to shift, exposing the edge of a charred, hastily-patched hole in the metal underlayer over his protoform. Ratchet’s medic protocols kicked on with a vengeance and he was reaching for the swordsmech before he’d even consciously decided to do so. “Drift, what the slag happened?” he demanded, no trace of the wanton tone left in his voice as he grabbed Drift around the waist and pulled him back through the doorway. “What is this?”

Drift jumped at the sudden grab and straightened up too soon, banging the side of his helm on the door frame. " _Ow!_ –what the hell, Ratchet?" he gasped, rubbing his helm and turning around to stare at the medic like he'd lost his mind. "What is what?"

Ratchet automatically scanned his helm, found no dents or damage, and dismissed it in favor of spinning Drift around again and splaying one hand over his low back. " _This!"_  he said, pushing the edge of his armor aside to bare the entire wound. He couldn't hold back the distressed noise at what he found. A perfectly round hole half the size of his palm, jagged edges burned all the way around–this was from a projectile, not an energy weapon, and his worry grew.

Wounds left by energy weapons were much less prone to infection–the heat that created them also instantly sterilized them. They left clean edges that could usually be handled by self-repair systems if the mech couldn't get medical treatment. But projectiles introduced debris into a wound, and that was all kinds of bad news. If the projectile didn't pass straight through, it left shrapnel behind that could shift and exacerbate the injury, hindering self-repair and increasing the risk of rust and infection the longer it was left untreated.

This wound was obviously old, and Ratchet had spent enough time thoroughly exploring Drift's chest and abdomen to know that there was no exit wound. Who knew where the shrapnel had migrated by now?

Drift was speaking but Ratchet ignored him. He pressed one hand over the injury, his sensors probing deep to feed him data. _Projectile wound approximately 96.2 days old, evidence of surface burns, subcutaneous void present, substandard wound packing material in use, redundant wiring systems in use, self-repair in progress significantly impaired by compromised energon lines and low fuel status, functionality 41%, likelihood of spontaneous rupture moderate, shrapnel present,_  and when the swordsmech looked over his shoulder, Ratchet glared back, angry enough to spit nails. "Damn it, Drift, you accused  _me_ of hiding a wound, and now I find something like this! What the slag were you thinking?"

Drift stared back, seemingly flabbergasted by Ratchet's quick change of mood. "I was–Ratchet, I wasn't hiding anything, that's been there," he said as though that would somehow placate him. "It happened–"

"–three months ago," Ratchet interrupted, his glare sharpening. " _Three. Fragging. Months,_  Drift! You couldn't take the time in  _three damn months_  to find yourself a medic and get it treated? Frag that, a medic came and found  _you_  and you still didn't think you should maybe mention that you've got a fragging  _load of shrapnel_ in your internals?"

"I had a few other things going on, you might have noticed. Prisoners. Gigatron," Drift replied, but that wasn't an excuse Ratchet was going to accept.

"I offered you medical care within five damn minutes of finding you," he growled. " _Before_  all this other slag. And you said you were fine!"

Drift sighed and rubbed his face with one hand. "Are we really doing this?" he asked, sounding like he was already resigned to it. "Are we really going to fight about this right now? Because if I can have any say in it, I'd really rather go back to the other mood we had going on."

The medic tried to rein in his anger but it was hard, so damn hard. Drift had been carrying this wound  _this whole slagging time_  and he hadn't even  _mentioned_ it! And a good amount of anger at himself was mixed in, too, because Ratchet had taken his word for it and hadn't scanned him, and he knew how Drift was. The swordsmech would keep going until he collapsed rather than inconvenience anyone and he would push himself further than any sane mech could stand–he'd seen it on Delphi when Drift had dragged himself off his literal deathbed to save Ratchet's life. Ratchet should have checked him over the instant he caught up to him, and he hadn't, and because of that, Drift had been hindered by a major wound the whole time they were fighting for their lives.

If that shrapnel had shifted at the wrong moment, if he'd been hurt worse, if he'd… if he'd  _died_ , it would have been Ratchet's fault. His tanks roiled, nausea assaulting him at the thought. "I think we're having this fight," Ratchet said through clenched denta, because he had to make the swordsmech see that this behavior was  _completely unacceptable._

Drift finally managed to turn around, dislodging the medic's hand from the injury, and he caught the medic's face in his hands. "Ratchet. Calm down," he said softly, and Ratchet realized he was shaking again, shaking hard. He didn't even have time to consider how out-of-character that was for him before Drift went on. "I  _am_  fine, all right? You saw my sword form just now. Do you think I could do that properly if I was severely hurt? You know I can take worse than this–you have  _seen_  me take worse than this and keep going. This didn't hit anything important and I field-dressed it. Anything more can wait until we get to the  _Lost Light_  and a proper med bay. I barely even feel it. I promise you,  _I'm fine_."

That attitude didn't do a damn thing for Ratchet's temper. That sword form could've dislodged a piece of shrapnel and cut a major energon line and Drift could've bled out on the floor while Ratchet slept, blissfully unaware that the mech he'd finally admitted he loved was  _dying_  because he hadn't done his job. "This hit something important," he bit out, ignoring Drift's argument and scooping him up. The swordsmech yelped at being snatched off his feet but Ratchet didn't hesitate. "It hit  _you._ "

Drift grabbed the medic's shoulders for balance, gaping at him as those words echoed in his audials. He looked up at that familiar scowl, his gyros still spinning from the abrupt change in position and from that whack to his head, but he wasn't disoriented enough not to feel the emotion behind Ratchet's anger. He was… was he actually  _hurt_  that Drift hadn't mentioned an old wound to him? Drift could hardly believe that, but what he felt in the medic's field before Ratchet muted it was undeniable. He hadn't wanted to bother the medic for something so minor, that was all. Ratchet's skills were sought after by Primes and Senators. He didn't need Drift annoying him with a wound that wasn't even fresh.

Clearly Ratchet's opinion on the matter significantly differed.

"What about the autopilot?" Drift asked as Ratchet carried him away from the cockpit, hoping that the medic wasn't planning to speed up their trip in order to get him to the  _Lost Light's_  med bay faster. Even if Ratchet was angry with him, Drift couldn't let him cut this trip short. He wanted as much time as he could get with just the two of them. He couldn't shake the certainty that once they got back to the ship, someone would talk some sense into the medic and convince him to find a mate who was worthy of him. This shuttle ride was all Drift could be certain he was going to get–was already far more than he deserved–and he wanted it to last as long as possible.

" _Frag_  the fragging autopilot," Ratchet snarled as the berthroom door slid open and he carried Drift through it, and even his field was shutting Drift out now.

This was about to get out of hand. Drift had to do something. "Right destination, wrong attitude," he sighed, and then leaned up and bit Ratchet's shoulder assembly,  _hard_.

It definitely got the medic's attention. Ratchet froze mid-step, arms tightening and body going absolutely still. Pressing his advantage, Drift bit him again, then leaned up and kissed at his throat the way that had been making the medic groan and shiver from head to pedes. He didn't get a groan now, but the medic's vents hitched unevenly, and he'd take it. "Drift," Ratchet said, his voice a little breathless as Drift cupped the nape of his neck in one hand and stroked his fingertips just beneath the edge of his helm, still kissing his throat, "I can't. Not with this."

It was definitely an improvement over being yelled at, but he wasn't going to stop yet. "Wrong answer," Drift said, biting again. That got a gasp and a brief resurgence of Ratchet's EM field, showing him exactly how much he appreciated being bitten, which was a delightful little surprise. Drift followed up with a swirl of his glossa over the area and finally got Ratchet to whimper again. "And clearly you  _can_  because you already  _did_ , pretty damn spectacularly, too, and I want to do it again."

Ratchet shivered and finally moved again, but instead of laying Drift face-down on the berth to expose his wound like Drift had expected, he sat down and settled the swordsmech on his lap. The Great Sword made that a bit awkward and Drift reached up and removed it, then leaned over to prop it beside the berth instead. "Drift," Ratchet murmured when Drift sat up again, pressing his forehelm against the speedster's before he could restart his nibbling and kissing. "What do you know about medic builds?"

Ratchet's tone was so serious that Drift went still on his lap. "A few things," he said cautiously, not wanting to have to explain exactly what he knew or how he'd come to know it.

Luckily, Ratchet didn't ask for more of an answer than that. "You know we come online with some extra programming, right? Medical protocols, automatic coding that kicks in when we encounter illness and injuries." Drift nodded–everyone knew that–and Ratchet relaxed a little. "I could make love to you last night because I didn't know that you were hurt–and don't think we're done discussing why the frag you didn't  _tell me_ –but now that I do, there's no ignoring it. I can manually shut-down the protocols if I absolutely have to, but it's… difficult, and not pleasant, and damn it all, Drift,  _I love you._  That makes it impossible." He held Drift tighter as though afraid he was going to try to run away. "My coding's going crazy with worst-case scenarios and care plans and treatment outcome predictions. I'm not going to be able to think about anything else until you let me do something about this."

Drift might have known the coding existed, but not that it was that insistent. No other medic he'd ever met had seemed that bothered by the protocols–none of them had felt compelled to treat him back in the Dead End, and he'd always been injured to some degree back then. They'd certainly been able to ignore it easily enough to frag him, whether or not it hurt, but it had always seemed to him like they were gentler than his other clients. He'd never minded servicing the medics for that reason, even though he learned to avoid one particular flyer the hard way–that one got off on hurting him even more.

But he'd known from the start that Ratchet was an entirely different class of mech from any of his old clientele in Rodion. Not content with a cushy job catering to the rich and powerful, he'd risked his own safety to open a clinic in the most dangerous part of the city. He treated the worst addicts and buymechs with the same diligent care that he would've shown the Prime himself, offering no judgment, just compassion, and refusing to accept any kind of payment even on the rare occasions when his patients were able to offer it. Drift had never been able to understand why he'd risked his own safety from the Functionists to help gutter trash mechs like him, and he wasn't about to believe it was just some stronger-than-average coding that had made Ratchet go to such lengths to help those who could give him nothing in return.

Ratchet cared so much because he was  _Ratchet._

And Drift loved him even more for it.

Drift raised his head and met his lover's gaze, guilt surging through him at the distress in those beloved optics. "I'm sorry, Ratchet," he whispered, reaching up and stroking the medic's cheek, kicking himself for fragging this up so badly. He was just so used to putting himself last that… well, he would simply have to change, that was all. He never wanted to put this look on his medic's face again. "I truly did not think this was important enough to mention."

Ratchet pressed his cheek into Drift's palm. "Yeah, well, now you know better," he growled, his optics sharpening again with the anger that Drift had long ago recognized was the armor he wore over his soft spark. "So be a good little pain in my aft and  _let me treat you,_  will you?"

Drift snorted and rolled his eyes. "You know, if you're going for a pet name,  _pain in the aft_  isn't exactly romantic," he grumbled, but it wasn't like he was going to argue.

"You'll get a better one when you earn it," Ratchet shot right back, and Drift chuckled.

"Got a few plans along those lines," he teased. In fact, he was quite looking forward to it.

Ratchet's optics narrowed. "So you keep saying. Don't think you're going to distract me out of this. You're stupidly gorgeous and disgustingly hot but I'm determined," he said, and this time Drift laughed out loud. Only Ratchet could deliver compliments like they personally offended him, and now was probably not the time to tell him that Drift found it adorable. "Now turn over, let me work on this. Vector Sigma, I can't let you out of my sight for a second without you getting yourself shot up. I swear you're worse than Optimus–no, you're worse than  _Rodimus._  I'm so fragging glad the Matrix is broken. If it chose you, I'd have to offline myself in self-defense."

"Even if it was intact, I think that's the very last thing you have to worry about," Drift said, trying not to grin at the ridiculousness of Ratchet comparing  _him_  to two Primes as he began to get up.

Ratchet snorted and clamped an arm around his waist, holding him still right where he was. "No, you're exactly the kind of crazy, brave, reckless, honorable idiot that thing loved, and just where do you think you're going?"

Drift couldn't help but grin at that particular comment–how was he supposed to react to his lover calling him names and suggesting he was Prime material like that was an insult? "Did you not just tell me to turn over?"

"I didn't say to get up to do it," Ratchet replied, and Drift rolled his optics. The medic glared. "Don't give me that look, roll over. Right over my lap."

"You treat all your patients this way?" the swordsmech complained, already doing as he was told. Truth be told, he liked the idea of lying across Ratchet while he worked on him. It wasn't as good as 'facing with him, but he would take any kind of contact with the medic that he could get.

He barely had time to get settled with his chest and abdomen across Ratchet's thighs before Ratchet planted one hand between his shoulders and the other right on his aft. "If you haven't figured out yet that you're special, there's no hope for you," the medic told him flatly. "Now be still. This won't hurt. I'll make sure of it," he added under his breath, and Drift's spark glowed with happiness at the determined caring hidden in that grumpy mutter.

Seconds later, all sensation below mid-chest vanished–it felt exactly like someone had painlessly amputated two thirds of his frame. Drift couldn't stop himself from yelping and jerking violently in shock. There was a screech of metal on metal and the sensation of being pulled hard to the side, like someone had tied him to an anchor and dropped it overboard, and he grabbed the edge of the berth hard. Ratchet swore under his breath and there was a scuffling noise. The feeling of being pulled down abruptly stopped, and Drift wondered if he'd been about to fall off Ratchet's lap onto the floor. It was impossible to tell without being able to feel the rest of his body. In fact, not being able to tell what was happening to most of his frame was nearly enough to panic him, and if it were anyone but Ratchet who'd done this to him, Drift would've already had his swords out, ready to defend himself.

The feeling of movement returned, much more controlled this time. Drift managed to look past Ratchet's knees to see the medic carefully lifting one of Drift's own legs back onto the berth–so he  _had_  been about to fall off. He had enough experience of how Ratchet usually responded to patients who wouldn't be still to immediately brace himself for a reprimand, but instead, Ratchet's hand settled on the nape of his neck in a soothing caress. "Sorry, I probably should've warned you a little more specifically than  _this won't hurt_ ," he said, his tone much gentler and his field sending an apology for startling him. "Pretend I said something like  _I'm about to disengage your sensation relays._ "

Drift released the vent he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Oh, thanks, I'm glad you warned me," he replied airily as he uncurled his fingers from their death grip on the berth's edge and wasn't at all surprised to see the dents he'd left behind. "Otherwise that might have been a tiny bit alarming." There was a clang behind him and a slight vibration through his frame, and he propped himself on one elbow to shoot a disbelieving look over his shoulder at Ratchet. "Did you–did you seriously just  _spank_  me?"

"Would I do that?" Ratchet replied innocently with a twinkle in his optics. Drift nodded solemnly and the medic grinned. "Ha! Better question is why it took me so long. Now lay down, be still, and let me work."

The swordsmech snorted and did as he was told, surprisingly at ease despite not being able to feel what the medic was doing to him, but he trusted Ratchet absolutely. "Just so long as it's understood that I'm generously doing this for your comfort," he said, and he laughed as another clang met his audials. "Stop spanking me, you dirty old mech!"

"Gonna make you pay for that one later,  _kid_ ," Ratchet growled back, and then he went quiet. His field sent nothing but a feeling of intense focus and Drift knew he'd gotten started.


	2. The Whole Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vienn_peridot, no more bad days. Have some more fluff. Get happier. This is an order. *shakes finger in a vaguely threatening manner*

Ratchet monitored Drift's field for any sign of discomfort as he carefully detached the loose armor plate that had partially hidden the wound. Logically he knew that there was no way Drift could feel anything past the sensory block he'd placed, but he couldn't seem to stop himself from monitoring anyway. Even the thought of causing him pain made Ratchet tense, second-guessing his every move to ensure Drift's comfort.

This was why medics weren't supposed to treat their friends and lovers. It required a certain amount of emotional distance to wield a scalpel or cauterize a bleed. Ratchet had been forced to treat enough friends that he thought he was immune to this particular flavor of turmoil, but apparently not. His hands were steady now but he couldn't forget the fit of trembling that had shaken him when he'd first discovered this wound.

The thought of accidentally hurting Drift was deeply upsetting, and in a way that doing surgery on Optimus or Jazz or Bee hadn't been. It made him nervous, made him hesitant, and that wasn't anything he was used to.

Pushing that unwelcome revelation aside, Ratchet pulled a few supplies from his subspace. It was a bit of a relief to get them out of there, actually–he'd subspaced so many medical supplies that First Aid had accused him of trying to take the entire medbay with him, and his subspace ached from overloading. He hadn't been able to force himself to put any of them back, though–he knew Drift too well. There was no chance he wouldn't be injured when Ratchet caught up to him and he'd wanted to be prepared for anything. The magnetic retractors were buried right down in the back,  _of course_ , and he had to rummage a bit to find them.

Drift chose that moment to wrap one arm around his leg and gently stroke his fingertips over Ratchet's ankle. The medic paused, still digging for the retractors. "You trying to distract me?" he asked, but he couldn't inject any venom into his tone. The touch felt nice… calming.

Drift shook his head. "No, just want to hold onto you. Is that not okay?" he added uncertainly, already starting to pull his hand away.

Ratchet hurried to answer before he could fully let go. "Of course it's okay," he said firmly and was glad when Drift's retreat halted. The sensation of his hand carefully wrapping around his ankle again, thumb slipping back and forth over the joint, made him shiver for a reason that had nothing to do with the upcoming surgery. "Just… just don't try to start anything. I don't need you distracting me while I do this. I want to do my best work on you," he added, hoping that would keep Drift from taking it as a rejection.

The swordsmech nodded and his fingers went still. Ratchet hated the necessity of making Drift stop caressing him. "I'll save my distracting for after, then," the speedster teased, absolutely shameless.

"Cheeky kid," Ratchet muttered, but he was grinning when he finally found those damn retractors and got to work.

Drift was quiet for a little while after that. Every so often, his fingers would caress Ratchet's ankle again, as though he wasn't aware of it, but never for long. Ratchet actually found it relaxing instead of distracting and didn't bother telling him to stop. He carefully pulled the underarmor mesh aside and fixed it out of the way with the retractors, then gently removed the packing from the wound. He activated his headlights to see into the hole he revealed. It wasn't as deep as he'd feared, but it still didn't qualify as minor.

Before he could start to reprimand Drift again for ignoring it, though, the swordsmech spoke. "Why do you act like you're so much older than me? You're really not, you know."

Ratchet started to snark back, but then Drift's tone registered and he realized that the speedster wasn't teasing now. It was a serious question. He thought about it as tiny precision instruments folded out from his fingertips and sensors started mapping the shrapnel inside the wound. "I feel like I am," he finally said, knowing it wasn't a great answer, but it was at least honest. "By a lot."

"I'm older than the war. You  _know_ that." Drift's fingers moved again, drawing another of those undecipherable little glyphs on his plating, before they went still again. "You've probably got a couple thousand years on me, tops."

"More than that," Ratchet said, but when Drift started to glance back at him, he hissed and poked the back of his head with an elbow. "I've started your surgery. Don't even  _think_  about moving."

Drift went still again. "Not much more than that, and you're talking about a few thousand years in the space of  _millions_."

Ratchet found the first piece of shrapnel and had to bite his glossa to keep from scolding again. The jagged bit of metal was lodged right up against a major energon line. It was only the merest chance that had put its dull side against the line instead of the wickedly sharp edge on the other side and even so, it had nicked the thick vessel's lining.

Ratchet grasped the metal shard with his microforceps–carefully,  _carefully–_ and slowly withdrew it. Only once he'd dropped it into a flask he'd pulled from his subspace did he process what Drift had just said. He frowned. "What's this about?" he asked, but he figured it out before Drift could answer. "You don't like me calling you  _kid_ , do you."

"It's more that I don't like you  _thinking_  of me as a kid," Drift corrected him, his hand tightening briefly on Ratchet's pede. "I don't like the implications."

Ratchet found the next shard–it wasn't in such a dangerous spot, so he replied as he went after it. "There's no implications. You just seem young to me, that's all. It's not meant to be insulting."

Drift snorted. "Ratchet, I haven't felt young in about four and a half million years," he said as his fingers relaxed like he had to force them to do it. "I'm about the furthest thing you can get from fresh and innocent. I've experienced just about anything you care to name.  _Tailgate_ is a kid. I'm damn well not."

"I know you're not," the medic murmured, dropping the second shard in the flask and pausing to briefly rest his hand on the swordsmech's shoulder. He hadn't realized his casual nickname bothered Drift so much. "I won't call you that anymore, but I want you to know that I didn't mean it like you're naive or inexperienced or whatever you're thinking. It's just that you're hopeful, and you try new things, and you... you smile, and get enthusiastic, and… slag it all, I don't know how to explain it right. You may have been around for as long as I have, Drift, but you didn't get old. Not like I did."

The swordsmech went quiet again after that. Ratchet had time to get two more shards before he spoke again. "Can't help but feel like a lot of that was my fault," he finally said, his voice very soft.

"Don't. I already told you what I think about that," Ratchet said firmly, knowing where this was going. "You did what you thought was right and I can't blame you for it." Well, he  _could,_  and actually had for quite a while, but he'd found a way to get past it. It wasn't a wound he really wanted to reopen.

Then again, maybe Drift needed him to. He had a perfect metaphor staring him right in the face–some wounds had to be opened and explored before they could heal, and festered if they weren't. He didn't want this festering between them. He sighed and zeroed in on the next bit of shrapnel. "I'll tell you something that no one but Optimus knows. Back at the beginning, before the massacre of the Senate and the Kaon Offensive, I considered joining the Decepticons, too."

" _You did not,_ " Drift hissed, his field flaring with outrage as though he thought Ratchet was lying. "Optimus Prime was your best friend!"

"I did," Ratchet replied calmly, letting his own field show his honesty. "And yeah, I've been friends with Optimus Prime since he was Orion Pax, but who do you think introduced me to Megatron's writings? I got all of it from him. Megatron… oh, Megatron inspired him like nothing I've ever seen. Orion hung on his every word. For days after every new speech, he could talk of nothing else. Drove me insane with it.  _Megatron says_   _this_  or  _Megatron thinks_   _that_ , all the damn time." He pulled the shard free, then swore under his breath as it nicked a tiny energon line on the way out. He paused long enough to seal the little cut and mop up the small amount of bleeding before continuing. "Keep it to yourself, but he nearly joined up, too."

Drift's grip on his ankle was almost painful. "If this is a joke, it's not a good one."

"Not a joke, ki– _Drift_ ," Ratchet corrected himself quickly, hoping the swordsmech hadn't noticed the slip. "My sense of humor might be a little twisted, but there's funny and there's cruel, and I know the difference. I wouldn't make jokes about this."

He scanned the wound again–three more shards to go, all of them deep, and the last one had migrated quite a way from its original position. It had done a considerable amount of damage along the way, including slicing an energon line and two coolant lines before ending up jammed right in the middle of a nerve cluster, which explained why Drift's redundant wiring was in use. The other two were nearly as bad. He thought back to that sword form and had to close his optics for a moment as a new cascade of  _could-have-happened_  images swamped his processor.

When he finished repairing Drift, he was going to wrap him in triple-strength armor and fragging  _sit on him_  to keep him out of danger.

But Drift was practically vibrating with tension, and Ratchet didn't think it was safe for him to try to remove these last shards until he relaxed at least a little bit. An unintentional movement at the wrong time could be disastrous. Ratchet paused for a moment, resting his hand on Drift's shoulder again and thinking back over millions of years to a life he barely remembered. "I don't know how much you kept up with politics back in Rodion," he began, and the swordsmech huffed a little laugh.

"The Dead End wasn't known for its lively political debates," he replied with a forced lightness that hurt to hear. "And our customers didn't pay us to _talk_.So no, I can't say any of us paid much attention to the woes of the upper class. We were a little busy with our own."

Ratchet stroked the tense cables of his lover's neck. He couldn't blame him for his bitterness about his early life. Drift had been thrown straight into hell right off the assembly line and it was a miracle he'd survived it as intact as he had. His anger was fully justified.

He caressed one finial until he felt Drift's frame lose a little of its rigidity. "Class wasn't any protection. I don't know if you know this, but the Functionists found out about my clinic in the Dead End not long after I met you there. Shut it down and formally censured me for… well, the actual phrasing was a lot of fancy slag, but it boiled down to  _wasting my talents on disposables and undesirables_. My skills were a blessing from Adaptus–" this was said with bitter sarcasm, "–and they were meant for  _important_  mechs. How dare I touch the unclean with the same hands I used on the Prime? Lucky for me that I was in the Prime's favor at the time, and he convinced the Senate that I was too good of a medic to waste on shadowplay or empurata. But it was made clear that this was the only warning I'd get. I'd only continue to keep my hands and my head so long as I kept them  _down,_  and Sentinel wouldn't save me again."

Drift propped himself up on his elbow and looked back at Ratchet, his optics very wide as the medic's hand slid away from his finial. "I… I never knew that was why the clinic closed. We thought…"

Ratchet gave him a crooked smile. "I know what you thought–rich mech got off on slumming for a while, then wised up and went back to his cushy job. Right?" He didn't let Drift answer–the flash of guilt in his optics told him that he was right. "Don't feel bad, Drift, that was exactly what you were supposed to think. It was safer for me to let that story get around. I even pretended it was true, to my shame." He shivered a little, remembering staring into Senator Shockwave's single eye and knowing that if they'd do that to a senator, a doctor, no matter how good, was nothing to them. "I should've stood up to them, but…"

"You couldn't do anyone any good if you'd kept pushing," Drift said firmly. "You did what you had to."

Ratchet wished he could excuse himself as easily as Drift did. "I was trying like frag to get off their radar, but Pax wouldn't stop giving me those seditious writings and speeches. And he was on fire about it, Drift, you have no idea. You've heard how inspirational he can be when he speaks–that's not the Matrix's doing. He's always been that persuasive, that passionate. He never could stand the Functionists, and the more they tightened their grip, the more he seethed, and he…" He shook his head and sighed. "He wasn't careful, not like I was. I  _begged_  him to be more discrete but he wouldn't, just said he had protectors, that this was too important for him to be quiet about it."

Drift was hanging on his every word now, optics bright. Ratchet sighed again–he didn't want the swordsmech thinking this was some kind of inspirational story or trying to emulate the kind of things that Pax had done. "It was  _dangerous,_  Drift. I don't know how he didn't get himself killed, even with everything I could do to try to protect him, even with his Senate contacts. I'm sure you know that Shockwave was a senator, but you probably don't know that he was also one of Orion's mentors. When the Senate sentenced Shockwave to shadowplay and empurata, I was beyond worried that they'd get Orion next. I tried to put around a rumor that he was trying to infiltrate the Decepticons for information, but the fragging glitch wouldn't go along with it. At least he was smart enough not to sign his name to that damn Decepticon registration act."

By now, the swordsmech's face was a picture of confusion. This was clearly nothing he'd ever considered, and Ratchet couldn't really blame him. It had never been much of a secret that Optimus had been inspired by Megatron's writings, but somehow that knowledge hadn't seemed to catch hold in the common consciousness. And considering that those two had been such bitter enemies for over four million years, it was easy to see why hearing this shocked Drift so much.

It had always surprised Ratchet how few mechs wondered  _why_  Megatron and Optimus Prime hated each other so powerfully, far more than a rivalry between two opposition leaders could explain. It was personal.

It had always been personal.

But that was not Ratchet's story to tell. He pressed Drift back down, sensing that he was no longer in danger of twitching at the wrong moment. The swordsmech resisted only a little before he lowered himself again, and the medic continued. "The point I'm trying to make is that I really do understand why you went with Megatron when he recruited you. He was going to abolish the caste system, redefine society, give every mech the freedom to choose their function instead of having their entire life be dictated by their alt mode. No more disposables, no more prejudice against cold constructed bots. I'm lucky and I've always known it–I was forged as a medic, and I'm good at it, and I have never wanted to do anything else, but I've known a lot of mecha who weren't so lucky. So yeah, what Megatron said sounded good, to me and Pax both, and he had the Senate worried enough that we thought he might actually be able to deliver on those big promises." He finally managed to grasp the easiest of the three remaining pieces of shrapnel and gently tugged it free, then went to work patching one of the wires that had been partially severed by its passage. "I know you had your own worries in the Dead End, but did you hear about it when Orion Pax went to the Senate and confronted them?"

"Everyone heard about _that_ ," Drift said, stroking Ratchet's ankle again. "He ranted at them and got dragged out of there by the guards."

"Yeah, that's the part everyone remembers," Ratchet agreed. "The part people tend to forget is that he confronted them with Megatron's words, and called Megatron his friend.  _Megatron,_  public enemy number one! I could have fragging  _killed_  him, the big damn idiot. He stood right in front of them and painted a huge fragging target on his own back, and he didn't even care."

"That was brave," Drift said softly, but Ratchet snorted.

"No, that was  _stupid,_ " he growled, still angry about it even all these millions of years later. "What good could he do anyone dead? And they wanted him dead, don't kid yourself. And I couldn't protect him. Sentinel had gotten fed up with the activists to the point that I didn't dare bring up Pax's name in front of him, and his protectors in the Senate were vanishing one by one. I even tried to contact Megatron in the hopes that he could help, but Orion was the one who knew him, not me, and he wouldn't make the call. I still tried but the Decepticons knew they were being targeted. They weren't dumb enough to let a complete stranger have access to their leader, not even just to talk to him. I got nowhere."

Drift's grip on his leg tightened again, offering Ratchet comfort this time. Ratchet vented slowly, letting the old anger and fear go. He'd never been good at watching the mecha he cared about put themselves in harm's way. He always felt like he should do more, should help, should protect them. Watching Orion endanger himself back then had been hard, and it had only gotten worse once he'd become Optimus Prime.

Ratchet concentrated on his mate's reassuring warmth across his lap and firmly reminded himself that the war was over now. When he spoke again, his voice was calmer. "And then everything went to the pit. The Decepticons massacred the Senate and Megatron killed Sentinel Prime when they took over Kaon. Pax couldn't reconcile his own beliefs with that violence even though if the Decepticons hadn't moved when they did, I guarantee Pax would have 'disappeared.' And then the damn Matrix got hold of him, and after that…" Ratchet stopped, vented slowly in and out again. "Anyway, Drift, all I'm saying is that I don't think you're crazy for following Megatron back then, all right? I understand why you joined the Decepticon movement, I really do."

But since he was being honest, he had to add one more thing.  _The whole truth, or it doesn't count._  "What I don't understand," he said quietly, "is why you stayed so long once Megatron's vision changed from liberation to subjugation."

Drift was silent for a long time. Ratchet had to concentrate to get the next piece of shrapnel out, a twisted, vicious barb that had actually managed to wrap partially around his spinal strut. It hadn't cut any of his wiring, but Ratchet couldn't understand how. He had to cut it into three pieces to remove it, a tricky thing to do so close to such delicate structures. He was pulling the last of it free when Drift spoke again. "I've never had a home. I did, there. I was wanted. It's… hard, to give that up, even when you know it's not… I know I should have left sooner, but I was… I had a place." He reset his vocalizer, but his voice was still hoarse when he continued. "And I suppose some part of me still wanted to believe that what we were doing was the right thing, that we were helping. I didn't want to believe that everything I'd done was just to replace one dictator with another. I wanted… I didn't want to believe I could've been that wrong."

"Yeah," Ratchet said softly, because he did understand that. He had just started to zero in on the last piece and couldn't free a hand to touch Drift right now, so he sent a wave of warmth and affection from his field instead. "You did it in the end. That's what counts."

"It's nice of you to say so," Drift sighed, clearly not agreeing, but it seemed like Ratchet's story had reassured him at least a little bit. "You almost done back there? Much as I'm enjoying story time, I was looking forward to doing something a little different with you in this berth."

He couldn't let himself think about that right now. "I can do this fast or I can do it right, pick which one you want," Ratchet said distractedly as he carefully probed along the deep track the final piece had cut through Drift's internal mechanisms. Frag, this one was bad. He wished he had First Aid here to assist, but there was no way he could leave this in place until they returned to the  _Lost Light._  If it shifted the wrong way, it could take out any number of vital systems, and unlike the other pieces which had lodged in a fairly stable way, this one was worryingly unsecured.

 

It was a catastrophe just waiting for a chance to happen.

Ratchet closed his optics briefly. _Not on my watch._  "Actually, I take that back, you don't get to pick. And you don't get to talk anymore right now either. This last one's deep and in a bad place, love. I need you to be perfectly still. If you don't think you can, I need you to tell me so I can put you under." In fact, he probably should've done that from the start, but he knew Drift hated drugs that messed with his level of consciousness. 

The swordsmech heard the change in his tone and didn't try to tease him again. "Won't be necessary. Give me a second." Drift squeezed his ankle and then offlined his optics to concentrate. His body went motionless, all tension bleeding from his joints and limbs. The vibration of his fuel pump diminished. In under a minute, he had achieved a stillness almost as complete as a patient under general anesthesia, the only movement an almost imperceptible flex of his venting.

And then even that slowed to almost nothing.  _::Ready,::_ Drift commed, lying utterly limp across Ratchet's lap.

It was unlike anything the medic had ever seen before. Drift's vitals were lower than most mecha achieved even in the deepest levels of recharge, and they were still falling. Ratchet wondered if this was some kind of martial arts thing or meditation technique or what, but he didn't care where Drift had learned it so long as he could keep it up while he worked.

And since he _didn't_ know exactly how long Drift could maintain it, he'd better get busy. He probed around the shrapnel again. His optics narrowed but the visual input was less important than the data he received from the densely packed sensors in his hands. The shrapnel shard was razor sharp on all sides and two places curled out like hooks, just waiting to snag and slice any one of the delicate wires surrounding it. Ratchet activated another attachment from his fingers, a tiny nozzle that dispensed an insulating foam. It was intended for patching areas of shorted-out wiring, but right now he used it to very carefully lay a thin layer all the way around the shard's wickedly sharp edges. The foam wasn't thick or dense enough to completely remove the danger, but it was a lot better than nothing.

And then, perfectly steady fingers working multiple tasks in concert, Ratchet began to carefully draw the shrapnel out of its nest of lines and wires.

He quickly lost track of the passage of time as he focused all his efforts on getting the shard free. A millimeter this way, move a wire with _that_ finger, hold a coolant line with  _this_ one, watch that edge, turn twenty degrees, slide under that sensor cluster, release that wire, shift  _this_ one instead... this was his equivalent of Drift's master sword form, an intricate dance fraught with danger. The shard fought him the entire way out, but Ratchet was patient, and he was stubborn, and he was  _not_ going to let it best him.

And finally he drew it fully out of his lover's body. He dropped the evil little beast in the flask with the others and initiated a full system scan to ensure he hadn't damaged anything without realizing it as triumph surged in his field. "You still can't move, but if you need to come out of whatever you're doing, you can," he told Drift, relief clear in his voice. That was nothing he ever wanted to do again without backup in a proper medbay.

 _::I'm fine,::_  Drift commed him, the words coming through slow and deep. The scan showed that he'd slowed every system down to almost coma levels. It was beyond impressive that he could do that on demand, much less remain conscious during the process.  _::Never doubted you, Ratch.::_

"Yeah, that makes one of us," Ratchet muttered. The scan turned up several small bleeds–very slow leaks, helped no doubt by Drift's meditation or whatever the slag it was–and Ratchet quickly got started patching them. He reinforced a nick on Drift's main energon line that hadn't fully penetrated, repaired what he could of Drift's damaged wiring and replaced what was destroyed, and finally irrigated the entire area with a solution of Perceptor's invention that killed almost every form of mechanical infection known to Cybertronian science. He finished by coating every surface in a nanite gel that would fight pain and speed healing before carefully packing the void again–and  _not_  with a wad of steel wool this time,  _damn it all, Drift_ –before finally covering it with a mesh patch and reattaching Drift's armor plate.

Only then did he reach up and caress one of Drift's audial flares again. "All done," he said, but quietly because he wasn't sure if the swordsmech was meditating now or if he'd actually fallen into recharge. Even his field was quiet, nothing more than the slow pulse of his spark. In case he was awake, though, Ratchet told him what was coming next. He'd learned his lesson when he'd accidentally startled Drift so badly that he'd nearly flung himself off the berth. "I'm going to reverse the sensor blocks now. It shouldn't hurt much, but tell me if it does."

Drift vented in slowly, deeply, and his systems began to come out of that extreme low-power state. Within seconds, his vitals had come back up to low-normal range. Damn, Ratchet wished all his patients could do this. "I don't take pain medications, thank you," Drift said after a few moments, his voice barely showing any sign that he'd been nearly comatose just a minute ago.

And of course Ratchet knew why he always refused those drugs. "I can use other interventions to treat pain besides medication," he said gently. "So even though I know you can handle pain, I need you to tell me if this hurts because it might be a sign of a problem, or that I missed something."

Drift nodded. "I'm sure you didn't miss anything," he said as his field filled with pride and love. "But I promise to let you know if I have any pain. Anything else you need me to do?"

"Just take it easy," Ratchet said, stroking his helm again. "Your body will be able to absorb the packing and use the material to speed your self-repair, too, but until it's healed up a bit, you're not going to be able to lie on your back."

The swordsmech chuckled. "Aw, that's a shame… for you, anyway."

Ratchet snorted at the implication and reversed the sensory block before swatting Drift's perfect aft again. Drift laughed. "Sheesh, still with the spankings?  _Dirty_  old mech." He glanced back over his shoulder and gave Ratchet a salacious grin and a wink. "You know, if you want to get your hands on my aft that bad, all you have to do is ask."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a nurse and I absolutely _adore_ doing wound care. Love it, love it, love it. So I'm very sorry if this part got a little boring to those who aren't deeply fascinated by digging around in injuries. I tried not to get too carried away--you wouldn't believe how much technical crap I cut out (heh pun heh) to keep it moving along. 
> 
> As far as the story Ratchet tells, that's about 95% canon. The Autobots were founded on Megatron's principles. Lie back and let that fuck with your mind for a minute or two. I'll wait.
> 
> Also the thought of Drift shoving a wad of steel wool in his back and calling it good just seemed exactly like something he'd do. *facepalm*


	3. Need You Now

Ratchet insisted that Drift lie still and rest for a while after the surgery, much to the swordsmech's dismay. Apparently his unsubtle hint about Ratchet being welcome to get his hands on Drift's aft whenever he liked hadn't been enough to sway the medic from his course. Drift had even considered telling Ratchet outright that he'd much rather pick up where they'd left off in the corridor than try to take a nap, but all it had taken was one look at the glint in the medic's optics for Drift to reluctantly decide that discretion was the better part of valor.

Every mech who'd ever passed through the CMO's medbay knew that look. The Hatchet was on duty and fully willing to eviscerate any patient stupid enough to try anything that might undo all his hard work.

So, hiding his disappointment, Drift swallowed the words unspoken and let Ratchet help him get settled as comfortably as possible on the berth. Ratchet had him lie prone–a position the speedster didn't much care for, but the medic insisted that it was the best orientation to protect Drift's wound, and he hadn't wanted to argue. Those moments when Ratchet had been furious with him for not saying anything about the wound had been awful and Drift would do just about anything to avoid making him angry again. "Why don't you get some recharge while I clean up," Ratchet said, and although he smiled and kissed Drift's cheek when he said it, Drift still took it as an order.

No, that was not at all how Drift wanted to spend this limited time they had together. But he nodded and closed his optics anyway, because even more than he wanted to 'face with Ratchet again, he wanted to make the medic happy. If that meant he had to take a nap by himself instead of dragging Ratchet into the berth with him for some decidedly non-sleep activities, well, he'd just have to deal with it.

The wakeful minutes ticked by. Drift tried, he really did, but no matter what he did, he couldn't go to recharge. He even tried the deep meditation technique he'd successfully used during the procedure, but now that Ratchet wasn't performing a tricky and delicate operation on him, Drift was having the same problem with meditation that he'd had earlier.

Thoughts of Ratchet filled his processor. His hands. His  _mouth_. The wicked satisfaction in his optics as he looked up to make sure Drift was watching him suck his spike. The way he'd moaned with pleasure and told him he tasted  _so good_  when he swallowed down his first overload. His voice over the com, calling him  _love_  and encouraging him to overload for a third time when he'd been certain he couldn't _._ That sound Ratchet had made when his spike slid inside Drift, like nothing in his life had ever felt so wonderful… the absolutely  _wrecked_  look on Ratchet's face when his own overload hit. The bright, powerful, glorious jolt of his charge surging through Drift's valve, lighting up his entire neural net with ecstasy.

Drift shivered. He'd never felt more wide-awake and revved up in his entire life, and his lover's attention was focused solely on his medical needs.

Drift wanted Ratchet to focus on some of his  _other_ needs, but he remembered how upset Ratchet had been when he'd explained why he couldn't 'face with Drift until he'd treated his wound. The swordsmech stifled a sigh and glanced at his lover again, watching the medic surreptitiously as he arranged his instruments on the desk and meticulously cleaned them. Ratchet's medical protocols were still so obviously fired up that Drift doubted he could get into the mood right now no matter what tricks Drift used.

And everything in Drift balked at the very thought of using any of his old tricks to seduce Ratchet. Oh, he knew he could make Ratchet want him, but he didn't want to attract the medic's attention with the same kind of come-ons and seductive poses that he'd once used to entice customers for a quick frag.

He didn't want to _have_ to seduce Ratchet. He wanted Ratchet to want him like he had yesterday, when he'd touched him like he couldn't keep his hands off Drift for one more second. When he'd kissed him like he'd been longing for it as long as Drift had been.

Drift bit his glossa to keep from sighing again. Primus, he hoped that medic programming would release Ratchet soon, because he'd patiently waited for Ratchet's attention for millions of years and he didn't know how much longer he could wait for Ratchet to look at him like that again.

… then again, what if Ratchet  _wanted_  Drift to seduce him like that, use his old skills on him? What if he was waiting for it? Lots of mecha found the thought of fragging a buymech hot–he'd made a living off that. Drift might've hated every minute of that life, but he'd been damn good at never letting anyone know it. He hadn't been a buymech in a very long time, but it wasn't like he would ever forget how those encounters went, and role-playing was a common fantasy. Maybe Ratchet got off on it, too.

But surely Ratchet wouldn't ask Drift to role-play  _that._

… would he?

Ratchet paused and looked up from his instruments. "Heavy thoughts, love?" he asked in the same gentle,  _I'm-not-pushing-but-you-can-tell-me-if-you-want-to_  sort of tone he'd used when Drift had first awakened and panicked before he'd remembered why he wasn't sleeping alone, and Drift realized with something near shock that his field had given him away again. He'd been so used to automatically shielding his true feelings from being exposed in his field for so long that it was beyond odd that he kept forgetting to do so around Ratchet.

But then again, maybe it wasn't so odd. For once in his life, Drift knew to the depths of his spark that he didn't have to hide anything. Ratchet had seen him at his lowest point and already knew his worst secrets, and he'd accepted Drift anyway.

That knowledge helped him to force the memories of painful, sultry smiles and alluring, desperate poses out of his mind. Those things were the past and nothing would ever make him go back to that.

And Ratchet would never ask him to.

"Just worrying about the autopilot," Drift lied, but as soon as he said it, it became the truth. The course Ratchet had programmed in yesterday was still in effect, sending them at top speed along the fastest route to meet up with the  _Lost Light_. He was hyperaware of every second passing and bringing them closer to the end of this trip. "I know we got… distracted by this wound, but I really don't want to hurry back to the  _Lost Light_. I mean, if it's all right with you, that is," he added, still cautious not to push too much. "I'll understand if you want to get back."

Ratchet put down the clamp he'd just cleaned and stood. "Is this a trick question?" he said with that crooked little smirk, but his optics were warm as he crossed the room to the berth. "You're asking me if I want to get back to those crazy idiots more than I want to spend as much time as possible alone with the mech I left them to find? You think I could possibly miss any of them even half as much as I missed you?"

Just like that, Drift's building anxiety was banished. Ratchet wasn't making any effort to stifle his own field and his emotions came through loud and clear–affection, and admiration, and longing, and absolutely no urgency to get back to the  _Lost Light_ at all. Drift hadn't had to manipulate him into anything. It was all there, offered freely.

"Well, it's your home," Drift said, wanting Ratchet to know that he wouldn't hold it against him if he did want to get back sooner. "If there's one thing I know, it's how important  _home_  is."

Ratchet reached out to caress Drift's cheek. "Love, the  _Lost Light_  and every mech on it can wait. You asked me to be your conjunx endura. That means that wherever you are  _is_  my home."

Pure joy filled Drift's spark and he let his own field answer with an unfiltered wave of love and happiness as he turned his head to press a kiss into the medic's palm. "Then please,  _please_  go reprogram the autopilot. Put us in orbit around the nearest planet. Take us around that nebula. Stop us cold right where we are. I don't care what you do, but right now we're on track to get there in something like twenty hours and that's much too soon for me." He looked up and met his lover's gaze, and he felt both nervous and daring when he added, "I want to keep you all to myself as long as I can."

"Me too," Ratchet agreed. "I'll fix it." But instead of turning to leave the berthroom, he bent down to kiss Drift. It was a little awkward–Drift's shoulder kibble and his position lying on his stomach made the angles a challenge–but Ratchet not only managed it, he made the kiss thorough enough for Drift's cooling fans to click on with a very audible hum.  _Primus,_ Ratchet's mouth was downright dangerous, and Drift whimpered as his barely-banked desire roared back to life.

The medic pulled back at the sound, optics sparkling with satisfaction and more than a little desire of his own. He kissed Drift again, slow and hot, his talented fingertips dancing along the edge of one audial flare as his glossa licked deep. "Mmm, you taste good," Ratchet whispered against his lips, and Drift moaned into his mouth. Ratchet bit his bottom lip and suckled it, then released it to scold him. "Stop making me forget what I'm supposed to be doing."

Drift had to laugh at that even though he was literally trembling with desire. Oh, he'd never known kissing could be like this, that something so simple could get him this hot so quickly. Then again, Ratchet could spin his crankshaft with a glance. "You started it," he pointed out, then flicked the tip of his glossa over the medic's lips, wanting more.

"I plan on finishing it, too," Ratchet murmured, and kissed him again before Drift could possibly think of a reply to that. This time the kiss spun long, passionate and hungry, and Drift found Ratchet's hip with one hand and ghosted his fingertips along the transformation seams there. Ratchet's own fans kicked up a notch and he caressed Drift's audial more firmly now. Tiny sparks of charge jumped between his fingers and Drift's audial, making both of them gasp.

Finally Ratchet groaned and very reluctantly pulled away. "Autopilot. Gotta fix autopilot. Will you stop being so damn gorgeous for a minute so I can concentrate? It's very rude," he complained, glaring down at him.

"I'm just lying here!" Drift protested, grinning at the heated waves of  _want_  radiating from the medic's field.  _Looks like he can get in the mood after all,_  he thought, and it was nearly enough to make him giddy.

"Exactly!" Ratchet said, pointing a triumphant finger at him like Drift had just proved his point. "Lying in the berth and looking like  _that_  is much too distracting. How am I supposed to think? Knock it off."

Drift snorted and shifted on the berth–not striking one of his old poses, not even close, but letting the movement accentuate the curve of his waist and hip. Then, remembering how much the medic seemed to appreciate his backside, he arched his back and lifted his aft ever so slightly. "How about you make me?" he invited.

Ratchet stared. And then he stared a little more. His vents sped up and finally he met Drift's gaze again, then gave him a smile so dirty that Drift's cooling fans stuttered. "Challenge accepted, love," he purred, and winked at the swordsmech before finally tearing himself away and walking out.

Drift lay there and didn't even try to wipe the grin off his face. Ratchet was actually flirting with him, even teasing him! It was something he'd never even imagined the medic doing, but the bright amusement in his optics and field showed that he was enjoying it every bit as much as Drift did.  _How long has it been since he relaxed enough to tease someone?_  Drift wondered, and his spark ached with happiness and awe that by some miracle,  _he_  had actually done that for Ratchet.

Carefully, making sure not to move in any way that would stretch the newly-repaired wound on his back, Drift rolled to one side. When that provoked no pain, he slowly swung his legs over the edge of the berth until he could push himself upright. He hoped Ratchet wouldn't be too upset with him for moving from the prone position he'd put Drift in, but Drift hadn't been kidding when he'd told the medic that he had plans for him. He had fantasized about this so many times, wanted it for  _so damn long,_  and this was his chance to actually do it. No way was he going to let something like a little injury keep him from finally making this dream into a reality.

Smiling, eager, Drift perched on the edge of the berth and hoped Ratchet would hurry back.

.

Ratchet slid into the pilot's chair and sent a brief text-only message to the  _Lost Light,_  notifying them that he and Drift had run into an unavoidable delay.  _Thought we'd get to the rendezvous in about a day but we're having shuttle problems. Might not be able to get there for a week. Let us know if the LL's position changes._

Blaster's response made the medic wish he'd worded his message much differently.  _No need for that. We'll come get you. Send your coordinates and we can be there in a few hours._

Ratchet hissed a curse. Talk about a plan backfiring–cutting their time shorter was the  _opposite_  of what he'd intended! He thought quickly to come up with a good reason why the  _Lost Light_ shouldn't just come pick them up.  _No good,_  he sent back, glad he'd decided to do this by text because he was pretty sure his face would've given him away had he done it via videocom.  _The engines are unstable. Wouldn't want to damage the LL if something happens. We have them operating safely at this speed. If we need to, we can probably speed it up to arrive in three days_ , he added, hoping that reducing the amount of extra time he'd asked for would help.

 _If the engines are unstable, that's all the more reason for us to come get you before something goes even more wrong with them,_  Blaster replied.  _Pushing them harder isn't a good idea. Send your coordinates._

Ratchet banged his helm against the back of the chair. This wasn't working. Time to try a different approach–the truth, at least a partial version of it.  _Look, I haven't told Drift who's in the captain's chair there yet. A few hours is not enough time for that discussion. Let us come to you,_  he said, his spark sinking because this really was a conversation he and Drift needed to have.

But not yet. Ratchet had already ruined the mood once today over that wound, and the memory of the desire in Drift's field and optics just now was enough to make him shiver. He'd be  _damned_  if he let anything else interrupt them from making love again now.

There was a slight delay before Blaster's reply showed up on the screen.  _We will remain at these coordinates for three days,_  he said, and Ratchet let out the vent he hadn't realized he'd been holding as a series of numbers scrolled across the screen.  _Offer to come get you still stands. Let us know if your situation changes._ Lost Light _out._

Ratchet breathed a relieved sigh and made short work of reprogramming the autopilot, anxious to get back to Drift. Three days… he had three more days to focus all his attention on his lover, and he couldn't wait to get started. His hands were shaking again and he held them out to stare at them once he'd saved the new course. This was, what, three times now he'd caught his hands trembling in just a single day? More? How did Drift do this to him?

The vivid recollection of the beautiful speedster lying on the berth, staring up at Ratchet and arching his sleek, gorgeous frame to entice him, answered  _that_  question. He'd built a reputation out of being impossible to fluster, and all Drift had to do was look at him with those big blue optics and suddenly he was a trembling, wanting, desperate mess. The things that came out of Ratchet's mouth when he looked at Drift were just… ugh, Ratchet should be embarrassed to say something so fragging cheesy as that  _you are my home_  line even if he  _did_  mean it, but Drift's reaction had made the humiliation worthwhile. He'd say a thousand cheesy, stupid lines to put that look on Drift's face. It was that mixture of sensuality and uncertainty that did it, that beautiful frame that enticed Ratchet's desire and the hopeful gaze that tugged at his spark.

Drift looked at him like someone who expected to wake up from this dream at any minute, and who was determined to thoroughly enjoy every second of it until he did.

And Ratchet would be lying if he said he didn't feel the same way. Drift was  _gorgeous_ , and passionate, and his frame was something out of a fantasy, but there was depth to him, too. He was so much more than just a pretty face and a sweet body and he deserved every single good thing in the universe. Yes, Ratchet wanted to tie him to the berth and keep him there for a month, worship every inch of his frame and make him overload until he couldn't even walk, but Ratchet also wanted to take care of him, to bring him out of his shell and help him find his confidence. He wanted to make Drift laugh–real laughter, not the too-easy kind that never reached his field. He wanted Drift to believe that he deserved to be happy. He wanted Drift to believe that this was  _real_.

Maybe when Drift did, Ratchet could believe it, too.

He pressed his palms together in a useless attempt to stop their trembling, then got up from the pilot's chair. This new course would eat up every possible second of the three days they'd been granted. He could conceivably make it take even longer, "accidentally" go off-course, but he was hesitant to burn too much of their fuel on a circuitous route. One thing he'd learned over the last five million years was that  _slag happened_ , and disaster particularly loved to strike just when things were going well. Ratchet made sure that they would have plenty of fuel not only to reach the  _Lost Light,_ but to get to the nearest mech-friendly planet from the rendezvous point just in case the ship wasn't waiting when he and Drift got there.

Or in case Drift took one look at their new  _co-captain_  and decided to get right back in the shuttle and leave again.

But all those were thoughts for later. Ratchet ducked through the short cockpit door and returned to the berthroom, his fans already kicking back on with anticipation. His medic protocols protested that Drift should be resting, not interfacing, but this time Ratchet could mute them easily enough. He knew he'd done a good job on Drift's surgery. The swordsmech's health was in no danger now that the shrapnel had been removed. As long as he was careful of the wound, Ratchet could make love to Drift without hurting him.

And Ratchet planned to be very careful with his future conjunx endura.

The berthroom door slid open and Ratchet raised an eyebrow to see Drift sitting on the edge of the berth instead of lying sprawled across it. He started to speak but didn't get a chance.

"Stop. Don't say anything," Drift said as he stood up, the words coming out quick-fire as though he expected to be interrupted. "I can move just fine. The bandage is intact. There's no pain. I feel perfect. I don't need Chief Medical Officer Ratchet right now."

Then Drift held out his hand, his optics shining with desire, his field shimmering with invitation. "I need my lover right now," he murmured, and Ratchet couldn't have resisted that if his life depended on it.


	4. The Benefits of Meditation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drift does a Trick. Ratchet appreciates it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not even slightly safe for work. Or school. Or any public setting at all. Seriously, just lock yourself in a closet for this one (or maybe a cold shower).

Ratchet smiled and crossed the room to take Drift's hand. He was  _more_  than willing to leave his CMO duties behind for a while. "You do make it easy to say yes to you," he said, sliding his other arm around the swordsmech's waist and pulling him in close.

Drift smiled at him–that hopeful, happy smile that made Ratchet's spark pulse faster–and cupped his cheek in his free hand. "Well then, if you're in the mood to say yes," he said as he leaned fully against Ratchet, pressing those beautiful curves against him and making his fans kick up a notch, "how about you lie back and let me please you this time?"

Ratchet shivered as Drift laced their fingers together, the speedster's slender fingers gliding smoothly, slowly between his thicker ones. Caresses like this made him wonder if Drift knew exactly how sensitive a medic's hands were–or at least, how sensitive they were supposed to be. He'd gotten used to having much less feeling over the last few thousand years as his hands slowly failed him, but then Drift had saved his life, both in the immediate sense by stopping Pharma from shooting him in the back, and in the long-term by giving him these new, fully-functional hands. The intensity of sensation after the transplant had continually stunned him for weeks, and he hadn't felt like he was really used to it until long after Drift's banishment. Feeling Drift's fingers sliding against his now made him realize that he still wasn't.

Or maybe it was just the fact that it was  _Drift_ touching him that made it so incredibly arousing.

He let his own free hand dip down and rest on the curve of the swordsmech's perfect aft and pressed his forehelm against Drift's. He'd be lying if he said the thought of relaxing and letting Drift pleasure him wasn't insanely hot, but what Drift had said in the cargo bay earlier still bothered him a little bit–" _You did all the work last night. How about this morning, you let me give you a good time?"_  Before last night, Drift had never even considered that anyone could  _enjoy_  giving head, and Ratchet was still a bit worried that Drift didn't understand just how much he'd loved doing that to him.

Most of all, he didn't want Drift to feel obligated to do the same in return, especially when it clearly held such bad associations for him.

"No winners and losers in lovemaking, remember?" Ratchet whispered gently. "Believe me when I tell you that pleasuring you last night was one of the highlights of my life. There's no repayment necessary. You don't have to do anything you don't want to, love."

Drift nuzzled the medic's jaw, then nipped his throat sharply. Ratchet moaned as  _pleasure/pain_  shot through his neural net. "Told you, I've got plans for you," he murmured against Ratchet's plating, then pulled back and met his optics steadily. Ratchet was surprised at the intensity of the eagerness in the swordsmech's expression. "I will believe you about last night if you believe me when I say that not only do I want to do this for you, I am  _dying_ to do this. Please let me."

If Drift truly wanted whatever this was so badly, Ratchet couldn't possibly deny him. "Then yes," he whispered, and the anticipation and joy that came over Drift's face was quite possibly the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He wasn't sure which one of them moved first but suddenly Drift was kissing him, glossa sweeping over his lips before diving between them, just as passionate as he'd been when he'd pinned Ratchet to the wall hours before. Ratchet groaned and pulled him even closer, closing his optics and kissing him back with all the love and desire in his spark.

Oh, three days was not long enough. Three  _millennia_ wouldn't be enough of this.

He'd lost track of the number of kisses by the time Drift turned, guiding Ratchet around until the medic felt the edge of the berth press against the backs of his thighs. He didn't break the kiss as he let Drift urge him down onto it, instead moving slowly enough to maintain contact. He caught Drift's hips in his hands and drew him closer, pulling the speedster right between his parted thighs–and then, just because he could, Ratchet pressed his fingertips into the seams and rubbed those sweet little sensor bundles the swordsmech so clearly loved.

Drift whimpered into his mouth and Ratchet knew his field conveyed the thrill that shot through him at that little sound. The challenge of breaking Drift's silence was incredibly arousing, made every little gasp or moan that much more precious because he knew how rare they were. He suckled Drift's lower lip into his mouth when the speedster started to pull away, caught it between his denta so he couldn't escape and teased the sensitive metalmesh lining with the tip of his glossa, determined to provoke more of those gorgeous sounds from his lover.

Drift responded by sliding both hands up Ratchet's thighs until the tips of his fingers pressed against the seams of his inner thighs and his groin,  _so close_  to his panel without touching it at all. Ratchet gasped and the swordsmech used his momentary lapse to pull his lip free. "Cheater," Drift whispered, bending to nip a hot, stinging path down Ratchet's throat and then suckle over each spot on his way back up.

The medic wrapped his legs around Drift's hips–carefully, so carefully making sure not to jar his wound–and let his head drop back, granting the speedster unhindered access to his entire throat. "Not sorry," he groaned as Drift made full use of that to bite him just beneath his jaw, hard enough for Ratchet to distinctly feel the four points of the sharpened fangs that were one of the few features Drift had kept from his time as Deadlock. Ratchet cried out and grabbed the edge of the berth like a lifeline as heat raced through his entire frame and his charge built with alarming speed. Oh, he didn't know why Drift biting him was so damn hot, but it  _was._  "Drift," he moaned, cupping the back of his helm to hold his lover in place.

Drift purred against his throat, their fields sparking fire where they intermeshed. His biting, thrilling kisses traced the big energon line along Ratchet's throat, then across his shoulder, and Ratchet's eagerness was edging toward desperation now. Drift's fingertips against those seams were a constant, still pressure and they didn't  _move_  no matter how Ratchet arched or tightened his thighs around the speedster. Ratchet retaliated by catching one audial flare in each hand and tracing caresses all over the sensor-packed metal. " _Drift,_ " he hissed, tightening his legs to pull his lover in close and pressing his hips forward, trying to rub their panels together but unable to do so because of the position of Drift's hands.

The swordsmech chuckled breathlessly against his collar assembly as his field thrummed with pleasure from Ratchet's caresses. "Hmm?" he murmured, not even pausing the maddening combination of bites, kisses, suckling, and teasing little licks that were driving Ratchet crazy. Not knowing which would happen next had the medic quivering with excitement and anticipation. "Problem?"

Ratchet growled and pinched the tips of his finials. Drift's gasp was music to his audials, but his hands  _still didn't move_  and the steady touch was absolutely maddening. Was he really this oblivious to Ratchet's hints? "Drift, move your  _hands_  already!" he growled, and he couldn't find it in him to care that the words came out as more of a plea than a command. Whatever it took to get Drift to touch him!

"Oh, of course, sorry," Drift replied, sounding truly contrite–

–and completely pulled his hands away.

" _Drift!"_  Ratchet yelled, beyond frustrated, and hearing the swordsmech giggle with genuine amusement at his reaction was not the slightest bit helpful. Yes, he'd just been thinking about how much he wanted to make Drift laugh, _really_ laugh, and the sound was every bit as wonderful as he'd imagined but this wasn't exactly the way Ratchet wanted to accomplish it. "That's not what I meant and you know it!"

Drift pulled back and smiled at him, optics shining with delight. "Oh, was it not?" he asked innocently. Ratchet growled again and swatted his aft, which made Drift laugh again. "You and those spankings," he tutted, shaking his head. "Someone might be forgiven for thinking you have a thing for my aft."

"You want me to tell you that you've got the hottest aft in the galaxy? Fine, you do. Now will you stop being a damn  _tease?_ " Ratchet demanded, and Drift laughed again.

"I am not a tease," he replied with great dignity, although the effect was slightly ruined by his grin. "Teasing implies an unwillingness to follow through, and I promise you, Ratchet–" He paused and leaned forward, brushing his lips over the medic's chevron and murmuring the next words against the sensitive metal, "–I have  _every_  intention of following through."

The medic shivered. "Sometime before I rust away from old age, I hope?" Ratchet grumbled, although it was very difficult to sound appropriately upset when Drift was leaning against his chest and nibbling at his chevron like that. "You're a  _speedster,_  do I really have to be the one to urge you to speed this up?"

"Maybe I want to savor you," Drift said, then closed his lips around the point of his chevron and suckled.

Ratchet let out a strangled moan. "Maybe I want you to savor me  _faster,_ " he growled, squeezing his thighs around his lover's hips in a nonverbal hint he couldn't misinterpret. Drift chuckled again and draped his arms over Ratchet's shoulders, but he didn't wrap them around him.

The medic was about to ignore his promise to let Drift lead when the swordsmech finally,  _finally_  put his hands on him, taking hold of his shoulders and urging him to lie back. Ratchet let himself be pushed down and found himself lying on a pile of pillows Drift had pulled behind him. He relaxed into the half-reclined position and was very glad when Drift followed him down. "Now, now, patience is a virtue," Drift murmured with a cheeky little smile that was sexy as hell, but not nearly as sexy as the way he pressed his frame against Ratchet's from shoulders to hips and wriggled. The speedster was clearly enjoying teasing Ratchet immensely. "I learned that in Crystal City."

Ratchet cupped that gorgeous aft in both hands. "And you can teach me all about virtues  _later_. What I want from you right now is decidedly  _not_  virtuous," he shot back, squeezing, and groaned when Drift kissed him again.

But the swordsmech didn't let him draw the kiss out nearly as long as he wanted to. "Or I could teach you about it now," he whispered against his lips. "I spent a long time learning to appreciate a focused, dedicated commitment to meditation and understanding the flow of energy through the frame. There are a few benefits I think you'll be interested to discover."

All teasing aside, Ratchet had to bite back a genuine groan of dismay. Of all the things he did not want to discuss in the berth, Drift's religious convictions were near the top of the list. Crystal City had been important to Drift, and of course whatever mattered to him mattered to Ratchet, but the medic would much rather they talk about it at another time. But Drift was clearly determined to talk about his religious conversion  _now,_ which was pretty much the opposite of sexy. Ratchet was starting to wonder just what he'd agreed to here and if he could find a way to tell Drift that this approach really wasn't going to work for him without hurting his lover's feelings when his train of thought was derailed by the sensation of Drift's fingertips finally,  _finally_  ghosting a caress over his interface panel.

As distractions went, it was stunningly effective.

The swordsmech pulled back just enough to meet Ratchet's optics, and his smile was still there, but it no longer quite reached his optics. "Trust me?" he whispered hesitantly, and Ratchet realized Drift's field had lost much of its eager anticipation and was filling with nervousness instead.

A flash of memory from last night filled his mind--the way Drift's happiness and excitement had vanished when Ratchet had asked him what he liked. Ratchet wondered just how much of his sudden apprehension had spilled into his own field. He could have kicked himself. Hadn't Drift just told him that this was something he was  _dying to do for him_ , and what was Ratchet doing? Concentrating on pretty much everything  _but_  his lover's excitement to share this with him.

This–whatever  _this_  was–was special to Drift, was something he desperately wanted. And Ratchet wanted nothing more than to please his lover. So the frag  _what_  if it had something to do with his religion? Was Ratchet's atheism really important enough for him to let it rob both of them of an opportunity to bring each other pleasure?

Was it really more important than the mech he loved?

_Not even close._

Ratchet smiled up at Drift, deliberately filling his field with arousal and encouragement and eagerness. And it wasn't hard to do. He loved Drift, not to mention that the swordsmech was the sexiest thing Ratchet had ever seen, and by some miracle he actually loved and wanted Ratchet, too. He didn't have to fake the shiver that went through him as he retracted his panel beneath Drift's fingers. "It's so easy to say yes to you," he whispered, and gasped when Drift gently cupped his valve. A new surge of heat rocked him as Drift swept one gentle fingertip through his rapidly-dampening folds and he arched beneath his lover. He bit his lip and smiled. "Mmm, so rewarding, too."

Drift's gaze warmed and his field lost its uncertainty. He watched Ratchet's face avidly as he traced soft circles around his valve rim, almost but not quite brushing his anterior node with every circle. Ratchet forgot his own uncertainty and moaned, tightening his legs around Drift's thighs, his hips twitching, trying to follow that teasing fingertip and get that touch where he  _ached_  for it. "Can I have you this way this time?" Drift murmured as he pressed his fingertip ever so slightly into his valve, not even a single knuckle deep, as though afraid to actually penetrate him without clear permission.

Ratchet swore and thrust against his finger, trying to draw it further inside. "Oh  _frag_  Drift, you can have me any way you want me," he gasped, every bit of his processor focused on chasing that elusive finger. Some mecha had a strong preference for spike or valve only when 'facing, but Ratchet wasn't one of them. He didn't care  _how_  they 'faced so long as Drift  _got on with it._  "I want you in every possible way. If you want to spike me, love, please, please,  _please_  do."

Drift rewarded him for that by sinking his finger deep. Ratchet cried out and grabbed the pillow behind his head, his entire frame arching as sensation surged through him. The swordsmech let out an appreciative sigh and the gust of hot air from his vents washed over Ratchet's frame like another caress. "Oh, look at you," Drift whispered as he withdrew his finger and slowly,  _slowly_  slid it back inside. He rubbed the flexible mesh just inside his valve rim, pulled back again, and started all over–circling, teasing, dipping that single finger inside, retreating, again and again. "Primus, you're gorgeous like this," Drift breathed as Ratchet writhed with pleasure, and the genuine admiration in his gaze was so intense that Ratchet had trouble believing it was really for him.

He had to close his optics. The absence of visual input only made Drift's soft touch that much more potent. The slow pace he set made Ratchet feel like he was going to lose his mind, and no matter what he did, no matter how he moved, no matter how he squeezed his legs around Drift's hips, all he got was this–one finger teasing him, so  _fragging_  good but nowhere near enough.

If this was meant to teach him patience, it was not working. Ratchet's whole frame tingled with charge and he would do anything,  _anything_  if Drift would just give him a little more. "Please," he begged, clenching one hand on the edge of the berth behind his helm and using the other to grab at Drift's wrist, pulling at him with no finesse at all. Overload beckoned, so close and so completely out of reach. "Drift, oh Drift, love,  _please!"_

Warm breath teased his lips an instant before Drift kissed him. Ratchet groaned as his lover licked deep into his mouth, his glossa mimicking the movements of the single finger teasing his valve, and when he tried to grab hold of Drift's helm, the swordsmech caught his hand instead. "Open your optics," Drift whispered against his lips when he pulled away. "Now it's your turn to watch me."

Ratchet did as he was told. The sight of the gorgeous speedster between his thighs and the vivid passion on Drift's face only sent his charge higher. "Please," he whimpered, his entire body trembling. "Please, I want you so much."

Drift's optics flared as he pulled back. Ratchet moaned in protest when his finger retreated and didn't return, but when he saw that Drift's panel was open and his spike stood straight and proud between them, biolights pulsing rhythmically from base to tip, his dismay vanished. His mouth went dry as Drift raised his hand, fingers absolutely dripping with Ratchet's lubricants, and slicked his spike with the moisture. "Oh yes, yes,  _please_ ," Ratchet gasped, his entire body taut with anticipation.

This time Drift didn't tease. He pressed inside in one slow stroke, and the stretch of Ratchet's valve around Drift's thick spike after that one single finger burned in the best possible way. Ratchet squeezed his lover's hand and cried out  _yes_  after  _yes_  until Drift was fully seated, their bodies pressed firmly together.

Drift bit his lip and panted when he was finally buried deep. Ratchet wanted to beg him to move but sparks already flashed between the swordsmech's protoform and armor, and the medic forced himself to stay still. He knew his lover was as close to the edge as he was, and he wasn't ready for this to be over yet. Drift felt so good inside him, such a perfect fit,  _so incredible,_  and Ratchet managed not to move his hips but he couldn't do anything to stop his valve from tightening around Drift's spike, calipers fluttering down his spike and up again. Drift's head dropped back and he moaned low and loud, his body shaking as those sparks intensified. Ratchet tried to stop, he really did, but it felt so good and he just couldn't control it–

–and suddenly the projections from Drift's field changed. The pleasure and desire stayed, every bit as intense, but a surge of pure determination overwhelmed them. There was a sense of intense concentration, the imposition of  _control_. Ratchet stared as the flashes of charge dancing along his lover's armor abruptly rushed together from all over Drift's body, coalescing in a ball of energy just below his spark. Ratchet gasped–he'd never seen  _anything_  like this–but Drift raised the medic's hand as that ball of energy shot up his frame, and when he parted his lips, sparks flashed between his denta–

Drift looked straight into Ratchet's optics as he sucked his index finger into his mouth and sent that ball of charge crackling into the medic's sensor-rich digit.

The overload hit Ratchet harder than anything he'd ever experienced. Drift purred around his finger as he finally _, finally_ started to move, thrusting deep and hard as Ratchet's valve squeezed down around him, suckling his now-hypersensitive finger in time with his thrusts, holding his optics the entire time as he fragged Ratchet through that overload and straight into another one before the first had even fully released him. Overwhelmed with ecstasy, Ratchet's fans screamed and his optics offlined and he couldn't stop crying out Drift's name over and over.

A sharp bite to the side of his wrist shocked him from his daze with a jolt of pleasure/pain and he looked up into Drift's optics again. "You are so beautiful when you overload for me," the swordsmech murmured, and Ratchet could only stare as those sparks began to gather at the center of his chest once more. "I want to see it again."

"How–" Ratchet gasped, but that was all he had time for because Drift did it again, whatever it was. The ball of energy leapt from Drift's glossa to his finger again and this time he overloaded so hard, his vocalizer glitched out in the middle of his shout of pleasure.

And Drift did it again, and  _again._  Every time the swordsmech got close to his own overload, every time those little tell-tale sparks of charge began to crackle over his body, he gathered it and pushed it into Ratchet's sensitive fingers instead. Ratchet's index finger was so sensitized after the first two jolts that it was almost painful, but Drift transferred the next gathered charge to his thumb, and the one after that to his palm. By the time he'd moved to the medic's middle two fingers, the tip of his glossa flicking between them in time to the thrusts of his spike, Ratchet could hardly breathe with ecstasy.

"Drift!" he cried, shaking all over with anticipation as that sparkling glow gathered again. He hardly knew what words poured from his mouth, some desperate combination of begging and moaning and praise, and Drift growled around his fingers and thrust harder. The speedster hooked one arm beneath Ratchet's thigh and lifted, pressing him down into the pillows. The change of angle and pressure hit Ratchet's ceiling node just right and he managed to reach up and lay his other hand against his lover's helm. He was sobbing with pleasure even before Drift called the ball of charge back to his mouth and let it flash over his fingers one more time.

The last thing Ratchet remembered was the brightness of that charge jumping from Drift's glossa to his fingers, the way it flashed along his own armor and back up to lick across Drift's audial finial, and the sound of Drift's strangled cry as he overloaded deep inside him.

And then ecstasy exploded through Ratchet's entire body and swallowed him whole.


	5. Lessons From New Crystal City

Something warm and wet stroked intimately over Ratchet's array and moved away. It returned, slipped up his inner thigh, dipped into the seams of his open interface panel, and retreated again. And again, over his other thigh this time, gentle pressure sliding boldly around his valve rim, swiping over his recessed spike, and once more vanishing.

What was it?

Not a glossa–it was too large for that, the strokes too firm. Not a hand, either–it was too soft, and very wet. Ratchet sighed and parted his thighs a little more, giving it room to do whatever it liked to him. It felt good, so warm and gentle, and even though it was all over his array, it didn't seem sexual, just… caring. Sweet instead of arousing.

In fact, Ratchet felt so completely sated that he wasn't sure he could get revved up right now if he tried. Every inch of his frame tingled with echoes of euphoria, overpowering even his chronic aches and pains. His body was limp, weightless, blissful. He sighed again, casting his hazy processor back, wanting to examine the memories of just what had left him in this absolutely strutless state.

 _A single teasing finger driving him_ crazy _. Sparks flashing between sharpened denta. A surge of charge directly through his exquisitely sensitive fingers, sending overload after overload crashing through his frame while bright optics avidly watched every instant of his pleasure._

_Drift._

Ratchet shivered as the memories came back to him. Oh, he'd never experienced anything like what Drift had done to him, had never even imagined 'facing could be  _that good_. The medic reached out with sluggish arms to pull his lover closer, needing to ground himself… and found nothing.

That wasn't right, wasn't right at all, and worry darkened his contentment for the first time. The warm, wet something returned to smooth a new path over his hips but he couldn't enjoy it anymore because his lover should be beside him and he was  _gone_.

Where was Drift? Ratchet frowned, groping through the darkness in search of his mate, but his clumsy hands found only soft berth padding instead of sleek speedster curves. He wanted to look for Drift but he couldn't see anything in this pitch blackness. Drift had left him last time, too, trying to sneak away while Ratchet slept instead of staying and holding him. This time apparently he'd succeeded. Didn't he want to be close to Ratchet when they weren't 'facing, too? Drift had said he liked recharging with Ratchet, said he wanted to get used to it, but he still left. The abandonment hurt and a distressed whimper broke the silence. The medic's frown deepened before he figured out the sound had actually come from his own vocalizer.

The gentle strokes over his plating vanished immediately. "Shh, what's wrong? Too sensitive?" The murmur was blessedly familiar–Drift hadn't left him after all. Ratchet vented a deep sigh of relief and held out his arms in a silent plea. His limbs still didn't really want to obey him but he managed well enough to get his point across, because a moment later, the berth moved. A warm, damp frame slid into his embrace, and he didn't need light to recognize his lover.

Ratchet wrapped Drift in a tight embrace, and when that didn't feel like enough, he threw one leg over the swordsmech's thighs for good measure, because he didn't want the sneaky swordsmech trying to sneak away again. "You were supposed to be  _here_ ," he said-or rather, he tried to say. What came out was something a lot more like, "Yuh s'posuh bu _hrrrr_."

Drift chuckled and nestled closer. "Wow, Ratch. What language was that?"

Ratchet frowned again. First his arms hadn't wanted to do what he told them, and now his glossa was betraying him, too? But Drift nuzzled his jaw and kissed the side of his throat, and Ratchet sighed again and rested his chevron against the speedster's helm crest, deciding that he just felt too damn good to worry about it. Still, one thing was bothering him, and he concentrated hard on speaking clearly. "Whyzzit dark?" he asked, and was relieved when the words actually emerged understandably this time.

Drift snorted, his field filling with a mixture of disbelief and delight. "Um. Could it be because your optics are offline?" he suggested in a tone that strongly hinted that he was trying hard not to laugh.

"Whu?" The medic frowned, thinking it over. Were they? No, couldn't be. He was certain he'd know it if his optics were offline. "Nuh-uh."

And that was it, Drift was  _gone._  He buried his face against Ratchet's throat as he spectacularly lost his battle not to laugh. He giggled himself silly, giggled until he snorted, giggled until he was gasping so hard for air that his vents went out of synch, and then he giggled some more through the hiccups.

Ratchet scowled–seriously, it wasn't  _that_  funny, was it? He blinked uselessly a few times before realizing it did no good and finally found the command string to check the status of his optics. Finding out that they were indeed powered down didn't immediately make him feel much better because that meant he had to figure out how to turn them back on. "Huh," he said, and that only made Drift laugh harder.

"Oh Primus help me," the speedster wheezed, clinging to him and shaking with laughter, "did I actually frag your brains out, Ratchet?"

It seemed like as reasonable an explanation as any. "Smart-aft," Ratchet grumbled, or tried to–this time the mumble that left his lips didn't bear any resemblance to recognizable Cybertronian speech at all. Drift howled while Ratchet spent entirely too long figuring out how to power his optics back up again, but he finally managed it. The visual input flickered a few times before it steadied enough for him to turn his head and look at Drift.

He'd never seen Drift laugh like this. The swordsmech's cheeks were streaked with optical cleanser from laughing so hard. His optics glittered through the moisture and his smile stretched so wide that it showed all his denta, even the sharpened ones he usually took such care to hide.

He was  _beautiful_ , and Ratchet decided he could deal with being the butt of the joke just this once if it meant he got to see his lover look this happy.

It took Drift several minutes to get hold of himself. His giggles would taper off and he'd wipe at his cheeks, nearly getting himself under control, and then suddenly burst out laughing again for no apparent reason and the whole thing would start all over again. "Pain in my aft," Ratchet growled when it seemed like Drift's giggling fit was finally winding down for good. The words were actually understandable this time  _(mostly–whatever, Drift could figure out what he meant, dammit)_  and he swatted at his lover's backside just to drive the point home…

… and missed.  _He actually_   _missed_. Ratchet groaned with a mixture of embarrassment and disbelief as his hand just barely grazed Drift's hip and he ended up spanking the berth instead.

That brought the giggles back with a vengeance. "Do you need help?" Drift snickered, reaching back and grabbing Ratchet's wrist so he could guide the medic's hand onto his own aft. Then he lifted Ratchet's hand and brought it down a few times– _clang, clang, clang._  "Better?"

Ratchet scowled at him. "Did that on p'rpose," he grumbled, which he damn well hadn't, but he would've if he'd thought of it. Making Drift laugh like this was an even better reward than getting his hands on that perfect aft.

Drift snorted and cracked up again. "Oh, you  _liar,_ " the speedster spluttered through his laughter, and Ratchet made a big show of being offended by the accusation.

Ratchet couldn't keep up the act for long, though, before he was chuckling too–Drift's giggles were contagious, especially when combined with the utter delight in his field, and he smacked that sweet aft again all on his own. "Ha! Gotcha that time," he said proudly, and Drift cackled so hard that his vocalizer glitched.

"Oh Primus, oh you gotta stop, you're killing me," Drift gasped several long minutes later, clutching his stomach and groaning.

Ratchet rebooted his vocal subroutines and rediscovered the wonders of proper enunciation. "Serves you right," he told Drift, hugging him close and dropping an affectionate kiss right in the middle of his forehelm crest. Oh yes, seeing Drift laugh like this was something to treasure, and he was already planning ways to make him do it again. "Seeing how you  _fragged my brains out_  and all."

Suddenly Drift's field was positively bursting with pride and satisfaction. "Mmm, so I did," he purred, pressing closer and winding his arms around Ratchet's neck so he could pull the medic down into an impossibly sweet kiss.

Ratchet sighed into his mouth and gave himself up to it. Drift rolled backward, pulling Ratchet with him, and he didn't resist–well, of  _course_  he didn't resist, he wasn't so frag-drunk that he couldn't thoroughly enjoy the way Drift's frame felt beneath his. He thought he'd have to be  _dead_  not to enjoy that, not to mention that the happiness and desire in his lover's field was enough to spin his blades all by itself. Ratchet moaned with appreciation and savored the way Drift shivered as he traced the curve of his waist with one hand.

Had he really thought he couldn't get revved up again? Drift was making a liar of him. Ratchet pressed closer, kissing him again and savoring every second of it.

A sudden prod from his medic protocols cut through his rising desire. Ratchet tried to dismiss it–he was  _busy_  here, dammit–but the next jolt from his programming was adamant enough to make him wince.  _SOMETHING IS WRONG,_ the programming wordlessly insisted.  _FIND IT. FIX IT._

_**NOW!** _

And then Ratchet remembered. "Oh  _slag,_  Drift, your back," he hissed, shoving his heavy frame off the speedster in a hurry. How the frag could he have  _forgotten_  something so important? "I'm so sorry, did I hurt you?"

Drift whimpered at his sudden withdrawal. "No, no, I'm fine, don't stop," he begged, trying to pull Ratchet down again. "Come back!"

Ratchet resisted. Instead, he rolled onto his back and pulled Drift atop him. The disappointment in the swordsmech's field vanished instantly and he stretched luxuriously against the medic. "This works too," Drift murmured, already bending to kiss him again.

But Ratchet moved so that Drift's lips fell on his cheek instead. The flash of hurt and rejection that instantly replaced the newfound confidence in Drift's field instantly made Ratchet wish he'd done that a lot differently. "Let me check you first, love," he murmured, his field pressing out an apology and one hand already going to the bandage.

Drift propped himself up on his arms and gave the medic a disgruntled look. "You're supposed to be my lover right now, not the Chief Medical Officer."

Ratchet smiled at him, wondering if he could ever fully explain how much it meant to him that Drift wanted him for more than just his hands and his medical skills. "I'm not being the CMO," he assured Drift as he received the first wave of information from the sensors in his hand–no new damage, thankfully. He hadn't injured Drift with his stupidity. He initiated a new scan, a deeper one, just to be absolutely positive he hadn't missed anything. "I'm making sure I didn't hurt you so I don't  _have_  to be the CMO again just yet."

That at least somewhat mollified the swordsmech, but he still gave him an arch look. "And judging by the fact that you haven't flipped out and started yelling at me, I'm guessing that I'm fine, just like I told you. Right?"

Ratchet nodded as the deeper scan returned the same information–Drift's wound was stable and hadn't taken any damage from their lovemaking or Ratchet's forgetfulness. "Yes, you were right," he admitted, letting his hand slip away and stroke a path up his spinal strut instead. Still, the reminder had cooled his passion, and now he wanted the same thing he'd woken up wanting–just to hold Drift close. "Come here, love," he murmured, trying to draw Drift down onto his chest again. "I didn't get to hold you after we 'faced. You owe me cuddles. Gimme."

Drift snorted. "Be serious."

"I am perfectly serious," Ratchet said, scowling now. "You keep trying to abandon me in the berth and I don't like it. Get your aft over here and cuddle with me, and that's an order."

"Oh, an order, is it?" Drift rolled his eyes but didn't look too upset anymore as he pressed a kiss to the tip of Ratchet's nose before tucking his helm beneath the medic's chin. "For your information, I was cleaning you up, not abandoning you. Pretty sure that means  _you_  owe  _me._ "

Ratchet sighed happily when Drift was once more wrapped snugly in his arms, right where he belonged. "Nope. Whatever you were doing, I still woke up without you beside me, and that means you owe me. Post-interface cuddles are not negotiable," he said stubbornly, and this time Drift laughed at him.

"Sheesh, all right, all right," he teased gently as he got comfortable, legs tangling with Ratchet's and arms winding around his neck. His EM projections were downright blissful as they blended with the medic's, reassuring Ratchet that Drift was not at all displeased by his insistence on holding him close. "Never would've pegged you as the snuggly type, though.  _The Hatchet_  and  _cuddles_ just don't seem to go together."

"Don't tell anyone. You'll ruin my scary reputation," he growled in mock-threat. Drift snorted again and Ratchet hugged him.

"It'll be our secret," Drift reassured him. "Besides, I want all the Hatchet-cuddles for myself."

Ratchet chuckled softly. "You've got yourself a deal," he murmured as he savored the feel of the speedster in his arms, the way their fields meshed seamlessly together. Drift fit against him very well like this, too. For several minutes, they held each other in silence, just enjoying it.

Then Ratchet kissed the sharp tip of the nearest audial flare and smiled when Drift shivered. "I hope you realize that that was the most incredible thing I've ever experienced. How did you learn to do that?" he whispered, because he'd thought he'd tried every possible way to interface back in his Party Ambulance days, and he'd never even  _heard_  of anything like what Drift had just done to him.

That overwhelming pride and happiness filled the swordsmech's field again, topped off with a hint of mischief. "Told you already–long hours of intense spiritual meditation in New Crystal City," he said, and even without seeing his face, Ratchet could hear the smile.

"So the Circle of Light teaches its knights how to frag people into stasis," Ratchet mused, keeping his own tone serious. "I may have to reconsider my stance on religion if that's the case."

Drift cracked up just as he'd hoped. "That is  _not_  what I said," he protested, poking Ratchet in the side.

Ratchet kissed his audial again and chuckled. "All right, then if that's not it, tell me what they  _did_  teach you in New Crystal City," he said, and he let his field reinforce that he wasn't teasing this time. He genuinely wanted to know.

Drift went still in his arms, obviously caught off-guard. "Didn't think that's something you'd ever want to talk about," he finally said. "You're not exactly a big fan of religion, you know."

"But I'm a very big fan of  _you_ ," Ratchet told him, still rubbing gentle circles over his plating. "I love you, and that means that I'd like to know more about the things that are important to you. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. But if you do, I'm interested."

The swordsmech didn't immediately say anything. Ratchet didn't pressure him, just continued to trace the curves and dips of his frame. Finally Drift sighed. "All right, then. I suppose I should start by saying that there was this one knight who was responsible for me in New Crystal City," he said, his voice very quiet. "Wing. He taught me a lot while I was there–not just Spectralism and spirituality, which you're very sweet to ask about but I know that it  _would_  make you crazy if I told you about all of that. More importantly to this story, though, he also taught me to fight. Or he tried to, anyway. I wasn't very interested in listening at the time," he added dryly. "Mostly it was me trying to escape, and Wing kicking my aft and making me stay."

Ratchet raised an eyebrow. That wasn't exactly how he'd pictured Drift's time in New Crystal City–the few times he'd heard Drift speak of it, he'd described it as very nearly a paradise. He'd sure as pit never mentioned being held prisoner there. "I've seen you fight," Ratchet said when Drift paused as if lost in the memory. "Your reputation is well-earned. I find it hard to believe this Wing defeated you all that easily."

Drift chuckled. "Oh, but he did, though," he said, and he didn't sound that upset by the admission of his defeats. "Again and again,  _effortlessly._  Every day was the same–wake up, walk through the city, hear how wonderful it was, get my aft beat, walk around some more, listen to Wing talk about religion and ideals and everything the Circle stood for that I could never live up to, go back to my room, then do it all again the next day. It was frustrating as  _frag_. One day he told me that if I could hit him just one time, he'd teach me how he kept beating me. I'm pretty sure he let me hit him, but anyway, he kept his word and started training me."

"To fight?" This story was not at  _all_  what Ratchet had expected to hear. He'd imagined Drift seeking out the Circle of Light when he'd left the Decepticons and spending his days in quiet contemplation or something.

Not… not  _this._  Ratchet was more than a little tempted to find this Wing and show him exactly what he thought about anyone treating his lover like that.

"No, to meditate," Drift said. His EM field was warm with what were clearly treasured memories, and Ratchet swallowed his own anger. Whether he approved of Wing's methods or not, Drift clearly idolized him and was grateful to him, and Ratchet couldn't second-guess that. He hadn't been there. "All different kinds of meditation. The sword form is one kind. That thing I did earlier, during the surgery? That's a more advanced one. Another one is a split-second technique to clear your mind during a battle, and I use that one a lot. It's saved my life more than once."

He was tracing little glyphs over Ratchet's glass chestplate now, symbols the medic thought he could recognize if he concentrated, but every time he tried, he failed to decipher them. Still, they felt nice even if he didn't know what they meant. "Useful things to know," Ratchet said, stopping himself from calling them  _tricks_  just in time. He didn't want Drift to think he was dismissing his skills because he truly did find them impressive.

"All those came later, though," Drift said as he continued tracing those symbols. "The first thing he wanted me to learn was how to feel and direct the flow of energy in my frame."

Now  _that_  sounded familiar. Ratchet shivered as he remembered that ball of energy collecting on the plating below Drift's spark, then shooting up his frame into his mouth. "And you were very good at it, I bet," Ratchet murmured.

Drift laughed. He propped his chin on one hand and grinned down at the medic. "Oh, no, I was  _terrible._  Couldn't get the hang of it at  _all._ "

Ratchet met his amused gaze and didn't bother to hide his surprise. "Finding that a little hard to believe based on recent events, love," he said.

Drift's grin didn't change. "Now, let me go back for a second and tell you something else. One thing the Circle of Light didn't have to teach me was that my temper can be an issue," he said, and chuckled when Ratchet snorted his agreement. "But you don't lose your temper around someone like Megatron or Soundwave, not unless you want to lose some limbs, too. So I had to come up with a way of dealing with it." His grin broadened and his field turned positively lewd. "I'd get myself somewhere private and, well, burn off my temper a different way."

Ratchet burst out laughing. Imagining an enraged Deadlock locking himself in a supply room or something and furiously jacking off to keep from losing his temper was way funnier than it should've been.

The swordsmech seemed to find it amusing too because he chuckled right along with him. "Hey, it's a technique that works, don't knock it," he said, but he was clearly not offended by Ratchet's reaction. "Anyway, one day I was back in my rooms in Crystal City– _locked_  in my rooms, to be precise–and trying to do this fragging  _impossible_  meditation thing, and, well, I got angry. I had no other outlet, so I dealt with it in my usual way."

Drift's field was a thing of beauty right now, brightly amused, proud, nostalgic, affectionate, all rolled into one, and Ratchet wished he could memorize the way it felt. "And you used the feeling of your charge to figure out the energy meditation?" Ratchet guessed.

Drift laughed again and shook his head. "Not even close. One minute I was, well, you can guess what I was doing, and the next I suddenly had this ball of energy crackling on my chest and no clue how I'd done it or what to do with it. I made the mistake of touching it, and–" He broke off and mimicked touching his chest, then jerking like he'd been electrocuted. " _Not_  the kind of overload I was looking for. Wing found me later passed out on the floor with my panel still open and everything. It wasn't really my finest moment."

Ratchet groaned in sympathy, but by now he was burning with curiosity. "Okay, so tell me already. How'd you go from knocking yourself out to whatever you just did to me?"

"A dedicated commitment to meditation and learning to control the energies of my frame," Drift replied in his most airy-mystic voice, and when Ratchet gave him a dour look, he giggled. "No, really. Whatever I did that day, it stuck. Any time I tried to self-service, it happened again. I  _had_  to learn what to do with it. I started seriously listening to Wing's advice and I learned how to shift the energy around my frame until I could get it somewhere safe to release it." He smiled and flicked his glossa over his denta. "And that, my dear Ratchet, is how I learned to meditate in the holy halls of New Crystal City. I self-serviced my way to enlightenment."

Ratchet stared at him. And then he burst out laughing. He laughed until it  _hurt_  and Drift giggled right along with him, his field absolutely tickled by the medic's reaction to his story. "Oh my _fragging slag,_ Drift!" he gasped when he could finally speak again. "If you tell Rodimus that story, he'll convert on the spot, guaranteed."

Drift snickered and rested his forehelm against Ratchet's. "That's one way to evangelize, I suppose," he agreed, and then they were laughing again, and they didn't stop for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... my mind works in very strange ways, okay? I blame vienn_peridot for provoking this silliness with her angst-bombs over on Love Me? (which everyone should go read right now incidentally)


End file.
